Roger Medearis (1920-2001)

Roger Medearis was born in Fayette, Missouri on March 6, 1920 and during his childhood lived in a succession of small towns in Missouri and Oklahoma. In 1938, Medearis enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute where he became a student and disciple of Thomas Hart Benton, who influenced the development of his own stylized, vision of rural America. Benton also introduced Medearis to the American Artists Galleries, which sold his works while he was still a student. Medearis’ final work as a student, a portrait of his grandmother, is now in the collection of the National Museum of American Art. Following service in WW II, Medearis exhibited in New York to favorable reviews but it was clear to him that abstraction was becoming totally dominant in the art world. Rather that abandon his realism, Medearis gave up painting for nearly 20 years, concentrating on a successful career in business. In 1969 he retired from business to re-devote himself painting. His works were exhibited with Philip Desind of Capricorn Galleries in Bethesda, Maryland, a relationship that would span for nearly 30 years. Medearis passed away in 2001.